The client had an existing product, established in the market, and had designed updated hardware featuring a new-generation radio transceiver chip to facilitate new features. The client supplied a sample of the existing product, and a couple of prototype boards of the new design. Our initial task was to create simple firmware to prove the new boards worked, and to allow the client to do RF performance testing.
To gain familiarity with the radio chip, Texas Instruments provide SmartRF Studio - a PC application which can configure the chip and control a BOOSTXL-CC1125 demonstration board. This gave a reference to implement basic control from an ATmega328P Xplained Mini evaluation kit, giving firmware which could then be loaded onto the client's prototype boards. This allowed us to identify a couple of modifications needed, and prove that the board worked. The client was then able to complete the RF testing.
The next task was to take the existing product code, and update it to work with the new radio chip and board design. The new chip was significantly different from the old, so this required a good deal of datasheet searching both to understand the existing operation and to implement the same in the new chip.
